Luc Sermeus

Background and objectives Documentation is important for quality improvement, education, and research. There is currently a lack of recommendations regarding key aspects of documentation in regional anesthesia. The aim of this study was to establish recommendations for documentation in regional anesthesia. Methods Following the formation of the executive committee and a directed literature review, a long list of potential documentation components was created. A modified Delphi process was then employed to achieve consensus amongst a group of international experts in regional anesthesia. This consisted of 2 rounds of anonymous electronic voting and a final virtual round table discussion with live polling on items not yet excluded or accepted from previous rounds. Progression or exclusion of potential components through the rounds was based on the achievement of strong consensus. Strong consensus was defined as ≥75% agreement and weak consensus as 50%–74% agreement. Results Seventy-seven collaborators participated in both rounds 1 and 2, while 50 collaborators took part in round 3. In total, experts voted on 83 items and achieved a strong consensus on 51 items, weak consensus on 3 and rejected 29. Conclusion By means of a modified Delphi process, we have established expert consensus on documentation in regional anesthesia.

Spine surgery is associated with considerable postoperative pain and can be challenging to treat. A loco-regional technique suitable for spine surgery should cover the dorsal root of the spinal nerves at the levels where surgery is performed. The erector spinae block is a loco-regional technique with promising results and was recently described at the thoracic level. There are no randomized trials of this technique on a lumbar level. This study tests the hypothesis that the 24-h postoperative morphine consumption is significantly lower in patients undergoing posterior lumbar inter-body fusion surgery with a lumbar erector spinae (LUMBES) block when compared with a sham block. This prospective randomized double-blind multicenter study will randomly allocate 80 adult patients undergoing elective posterior lumbar inter-body fusion surgery during general anesthesia to one of two groups as follows: (1) bilateral erector spinae block (20 mL 0.25% levobupivacaine) or (2) bilateral sham block (20 mL NaCl 0.9%). Our primary endpoint is 24-h postoperative morphine consumption. Secondary endpoints include 72-h morphine consumption, intraoperative sufentanil dosage, postoperative pain scores at regular time intervals both at rest and during movement, time to first postoperative mobilization, and the Quality of Recovery 40 survey score. The LUMBES trial is a pragmatic clinical study that will provide evidence of whether a bilateral lumbar erector spinae block is effective in reducing 24-h postoperative morphine consumption in patients undergoing lumbar inter-body fusion surgery. If this hypothesis is confirmed, this finding could contribute to more widespread implementation of this technique. Local ethics committee B300201837508, ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03825198 . Registered on 31 Jan 2019.

The erector spinae plane (ESP) block is an interfascial analgesic technique first described as an alternative for pain control at the thoracic level. The objective of this observational study was to determine the anatomical spread of dye following a T7 ESP block in a cadaveric model.

This randomized double-blind controlled trial compared the block characteristics of three low-dose local anesthetics at different roots in an ultrasound-guided interscalene block, using thermal quantitative sensory testing for assessing the functioning of cutaneous small nerve fibres. A total of 37 adults scheduled to undergo shoulder arthroscopy were randomized to receive 5 mL of either 0.5% levobupivacaine with and without epinephrine 1/200,000 or 0.75% ropivacaine in a single-shot interscalene block. Thermal quantitative sensory testing was performed in the C4, C5, C6 and C7 dermatomes. Detection thresholds for cold/warm sensation and cold/heat pain were measured before and at 30 min, 6, 10 and 24 h after infiltration around C5. The need for rescue medication was recorded. No significant differences between groups were found for any sensation (lowest P = 0.28). At 6 h, the largest differences in sensory thresholds were observed for the C5 dermatome. The increase in thresholds were less in C4 and C6 and minimal in C7 for all sensations. The analgesic effect lasted the longest in C5 (time × location mixed model P < 0.001 for all sensory tests). The time to rescue analgesia was significantly shorter with 0.75% ropivacaine (P = 0.02). The quantitative sensory findings showed no difference in intensity between the local anesthetics tested. A decrease in block intensity, with minimal changes in pain detection thresholds, was observed in the roots adjacent to C5, with the lowest block intensity in C7. A clinically relevant shorter duration was found with 0.75% ropivacaine compared to the other groups. Trial registration NCT 02691442.

To use quantitative sensory testing (QST) to assess whether a stellate ganglion block (SGB) modulates the analgesia induced by cervical paravertebral block (CPVB). A prospective double-blind randomized controlled trial. Department of Anesthesia, Antwerp University Hospital, October 2011 to December 2015. Twenty-eight adults scheduled for arthroscopy of a nonfractured shoulder were enrolled. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either single CPVB (5 mL of levobupivacaine 0.5%) or combined CPVB + SGB (5 mL and 3 mL of levobubivacaine 0.5%, respectively). The detection thresholds for cold/warm sensations and cold/heat pain were established using thermal QST on the C4-C7 dermatomes before local anesthetic infiltration and at 0.5, 6, 10, and 24 hours thereafter. Our primary outcome was the time course of QST thresholds for the different neurosensitive/nociceptive modalities. As secondary and tertiary outcomes, we evaluated the degree of motor block and the time to first administration of rescue analgesics. We randomized 20 patients. There were no significant differences in the detection thresholds for the neurosensitive/nociceptive modalities, motor block, or timing for rescue analgesics between the groups (P = 0.15–0.94). All patients with CPVB + SGB exhibited Horner’s signs, whereas patients in the CPVB group did not exhibit these signs; however, this does not exclude sympathetic block. We were unable to demonstrate any analgesic benefit of CPVB + SGB in arthroscopic shoulder surgery. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that pain from soft tissue injuries without bony lesions is transmitted mainly by somatic nerves with no or only minimal involvement of the sympathetic nervous system.

There is still a lack of a universally applicable and comprehensive scoring system for documenting the invasiveness of surgical procedures. The proposed preliminary 'Universal Surgical Invasiveness Score' (pUSIS) is intended to fill this gap. We used the recently developed pUSIS to obtain values from 8 types of surgery and 80 individual interventions. The results were analysed using descriptive statistical methods. The degree of difficulty on a scale from 0 (very easy) to 10 (extremely difficult) and time expenditures for assessing pUSIS were documented. Individual pUSIS values ranged from 8 in a laparoscopic cholecystectomy case to 36 in a total hip replacement case. The lowest median pUSIS value of 11.5 was found for laparoscopic cholecystectomy and the highest value of 24.5 was found for open thoracic surgery. The correlation between pUSIS values and the duration of surgery resulted in a tight linear regression (R2=0.6419). The lowest mean (±SD) difficulty level to obtain pUSIS values was 1.6±0.6 for sleeve gastrectomy and the highest one was 2.9±0.6 for knee replacement. The duration to finalise the calculations was 4.1±1.1 min for video-assisted thoracoscopy (VATS) and 9.4±1.3 min for sleeve gastrectomy. We concluded that pUSIS has the potential to be a useful, simply obtainable and universal assessment tool for quantification of the magnitude and invasiveness of individual surgical operations and can serve as a means to quantify surgical interventions for outcome research and evaluate surgical performance.

Summary: This study evaluated the incidence of nerve puncture and intraneural injection based on the needle approach to the nerve (direct vs. tangential). Two expert operators in regional anaesthesia performed in‐plane ultrasound‐guided nerve blocks (n = 158) at different levels of the brachial plexus in cadavers, aiming either directly for the nerve (n = 77) or tangentially inferior to the nerve (n = 81). After reaching the outer limit of the nerve, the needle was intentionally advanced approximately 1 mm in both approaches, and 0.2–0.5 ml of saline was injected. Each operator classified (in real time) the needle tip and injectate as intraneural or not. Video clips showing the final position of the needle and the injection were evaluated in the same manner by seven independent expert observers who were blinded to the aims of this study. In addition, 20 injections were performed with ink for histological evaluation. Intraneural injections of saline were observed by the operator in 58% (45/77) of cases using the direct approach and 12% (10/81) of cases using the tangential approach (p < 0.001). The independent observers agreed with the operator in a substantial number of cases (Cohen's kappa index 0.65). Histological studies showed intraneural spread in 83% (5/6) of cases using the direct approach and in 14% (2/14) of cases using the tangential approach (p = 0.007). No intrafascicular injections were observed. There was good agreement between the operators’ assessment and subsequent histological evaluation (Cohen's kappa = 0.89). Simulation of an unintentional/accidental advancement of the needle ‘beyond the edge’ of the nerve suggests significantly increased risk of epineural perforation and intraneural injection when a direct approach to the nerve is used, compared with a tangential approach.